The River Sorrow

Starred review from August 29, 1994
Holden's debut novel is an exceptionally adroit thriller about a young doctor whose drug-riddled past comes back to haunt him. Adrian Lancaster is the emergency-room physician in a Morgantown, Mich., hospital whose troubles begin when some of his friends from his days as an addict start to turn up dead or seriously injured. Eventually, Lancaster becomes a murder suspect, caught up in a scheme to manufacture a synthetic form of heroin and introduce it into the Detroit pipeline. Others under suspicion include a mysterious woman named Storm Summers, some of the federal investigators who take charge of the case and a prominent Detroit building contractor; also playing key roles are the local police lieutenant handling the investigation and Lancaster's deceased girlfriend, a junkie who had a major hand in designing the drug. Generally, the author keeps the suspense and tension high and tight (with the exception of some mundane material in the early police investigations), and he laces his narrative with fascinating medical/forensic detail. In addition, he does some fine character writing around Lancaster's obsession with his old heroin habit, though the police lieutenant tends towards stereotype. Holden says that he began this novel as a ``schlocky paperback,'' then, aiming higher, studied Presumed Innocent and Gorky Park to see how ``great'' literary thrillers are constructed. The influence shows, yet the author has achieved his aim: this is an outstanding first effort, a dark and sensitive thriller that trumpets what may be a significant new name in the crime genre. Audio rights to Recorded Books (unabridged) and BDD Audio (abridged); BOMC alternate.